It's the Little Things... (part 3)

In beta, there are now Griffon riding guards flying over Stormwind. I'm sure this is related to the widespread concerns about Horde in our airspace. Unfortunately, these guards didn't do anything when a troll druid flew by.  Maybe it's a work in progress still. They have made a lot more invites to beta, so every time I go in recently, there is some loser with nothing better to do than try to menace people from the air in Stormwind. I am so going to lose it if that is happening on Dec. 7.

A very irritating bug has made it into live servers with patch 4.0.1.  NPC names cannot be completely turned off. There is a setting for this in your interface panel, but quest-related NPCs still have neon red names floating over their heads. This especially bugs me because the only names I usually turn on are Horde Player names so that I can see them turn red and become a danger to me if that's what they are going to do. Now, I go a-questing and I'm surrounded by red names that leave me highly at unease. One might get used to this. But the control is there, Blizzard just needs to fix it.

The New Deal for Flying

You know you want these.

The latest beta build has a number of changes to the flying system:

• Old Weather Flying - (Really named Azerothian Navigation) So, it is going to cost you to use your flying mount in the Old World after all. It's 250 gold (200 with exalted SW reputation). That really is pretty well chump change, so no big worries. You can pick this up at level 60 however, but I think I read that if you don't have a Burning Crusade expansion, then you are not eligible for this.

Developers Gone Wild!

This is just a tidbit, but check out this tooltip:

Glyph of the Monkey

At some point in the future, this dynamic link will get dynamically fixed. So for historical accuracy, at the time this was posted it said "Your Polymorph: Sheep spell polymorphs the target into a bear cub instead."

It gives me the idea that there's a bunch of developers sitting around a table somewhere calling out ideas that some peon is taking notes and they all get confused sometime.

To be honest, I have fought monkeys and I have fought bear cubs in world. I'm not sure that these are docile enough for polymorph.

Regardless, between my mage's Polymorph sheep, turtle, pig and cat, (penguin needs a glyph. Whatever) Need something to rotate around that bestiary a bit more frequently

Do You Think It's a Bug?

I was trying to take some footage of Winklestein's Feign Death animation which really made me laugh out loud. As you can see, however, there seems to be a little problem with the video recorder in the new client.

One Word: "Stylin'!!"

Questgiver: Take this, a mighty magic helmet, to aid you in your struggles.
Winklestien: Hoo Yeah! 'Bout time one of you questgivers gave me a helmet with some stats.
Questgiver: And in addition to protecting your life, this helm shall strike fear into all who oppose you on the battlefield. Your visage shall be one of terror to your enemies.
Winklestein: Sweet!
(Winklestein puts on the helmet, stands a bit taller... for a goblin)
Winklestein: How do I look?
Questgiver: ...
Winklestein: C'mon! Spit it out!
Questgiver: One word: Stylin!


Winklestein is wearing the Spearhead Helm, available soon from questgivers all over the Southern Barrens.

My Hunter and Her Felsteed

After the Cataclysm, all hunters ride Felsteeds

I have to laugh sometimes at how things can break in beta. It is, from all accounts, a completely normal thing for stuff to break or be incomplete at this stage. You just wouldn't expect the weird ways this would happen.

Best example is my hunter riding her Felsteed there. At this time, the goblin racial mount does not exist. Nor is there a trainer for riding anything, and of course, at around lvl 30, she is not exalted with any other factions of note who could help her get mounted. A work-around was discovered though!

Goblins (and anybody else, I suppose) can train for Blacksmithing in Orgrimmar and right next to him is the Weaponsmith trainer. And the weaponsmith trainer will teach the spell "Summon Felsteed." Makes perfect sense, right?

Many of the other things breaking are really new things though. Winklestein specced into Survival Huntering and thus received Explosive Shot at lvl 10. Except that she didn't. The spell appeared when I allocated my first points and then disappeared for all time ever after.

I would write a beta feedback ticket about this. If you have never seen it, the beta and PTR clients have an extra mini-map feature to make reporting bugs and problems very easy. Except that two builds ago, the entire feedback system disappeared. It has reappeared since, but is still not functional.